Saturday, 20 September 2014

As Ladakh border standoff continues, questions over timing

By Ajai
Shukla

Business Standard, 20th Sept 14

A day
before President Xi Jinping of China travelled to India for a state visit from
Sept 17-19, China’s foreign ministry in Beijing termed the visit “a new
historical starting point… of great significance”.

Yet, on
Thursday, when Xi echoed that sentiment in New Delhi after talks with Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, describing his visit as “a historic opportunity to
renew ties”, that prospect had already been scuttled by a brewing confrontation
on the de facto Sino-Indian border in Ladakh.

Even as the
leaders talked, some 500 armed Indian soldiers stood eyeball-to-eyeball with as
many Chinese border guards, a paramilitary setup that works under the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA). In the run up to Xi’s visit, the Chinese had intruded
3-4 kilometres across what India perceives as the Line of Actual Control (LAC),
travelling in vehicles along a road the PLA had earlier built.

That
face-off near Chumar Post is continuing, with tensions rising as neither side
is backing off. This 14,000-feet-high enclave is a known hotspot, where the LAC
is disputed. Chinese troops claim they are on their side of the LAC, while the
Indians are intruding.

There is no
way to know whether President Xi knew about the Chinese intrusion ahead of his
visit, or whether it had his tacit or explicit sanction. Indian analysts say
there are three possible explanations, and none of them make Xi look good.

The first
option is that Xi was taken by surprise by the intrusions. If this is correct,
the PLA, long thought to be firmly under Xi’s control, is pursuing its own
agenda boldly enough to undermine a presidential visit to India.

That would seriously
question Xi’s reputation as China’s paramount leader. Many have argued that the
quickness with which Xi consolidated power --- assuming three key posts of president
of the People Republic of China; general secretary of the Chinese Communist
Party; and chairman of the Central Military Commission --- makes him China’s
most powerful leader since Deng Xiao-ping.

This, say
Indian policymakers, would complicate New Delhi’s calculations by having to
factor the PLA as an independent, or at least semi-autonomous, actor.

A second
possibility is that Xi knowingly permitted the intrusion to coincide with his
visit, to put brakes on the strategic and security relationship even while
dangling the bait of $20 billion in Chinese investment to boost the economic
relationship with India. By this logic, Xi wants access to India’s markets
without having to service a real strategic partnership with Delhi, which Beijing
views as inherently adversarial.

New Delhi
has not missed that Xi travelled to Delhi via the Maldives and Sri Lanka, where
he splashed out cash for various projects --- an inter-island “China bridge” in
the Maldives, and $1.4 billion in financing to Sri Lanka to build a new port
outside Colombo. India regards this as a part of China’s “string of pearls”
strategy, which involves creating a network of allies to undermine India’s predominance
in the Indian Ocean.

Over the
preceding year, Beijing has energetically pursued the reactivation of the
ancient “maritime silk route”; a trade corridor linking the Maldives and Sri
Lanka with India, Myanmar and south-east Asia. Maritime specialists in New
Delhi say this proposal has the same objective as the string of pearls strategy
--- to expand Chinese influence along India’s maritime periphery.

A third possible
reason for the intrusion could be Xi’s belief that China’s border management
should not be constrained by an improving relationship with India. In this
view, the PLA is allowed to run an aggressive border policy, while relying on
the network of confidence building agreements --- the 1993 Peace and
Tranquillity Agreement; further agreements in 1996, 2005 and 2012; and the Border
Defence Cooperation Agreement of 2013 --- to prevent escalation.

This pro-active
border management would ensure that, when maps are exchanged or a border
delineated, China is well poised to claim as much territory as possible.

This explains
the PLA’s use of civilian border populations to establish fresh territorial claims,
as reported in this newspaper (“China’s
border guards target populations along LAC”, Sept 17).

Even so,
the intrusion has undermined the prospect of Sino-Indian strategic convergence.
It has taken some of the focus off trade and commerce and retrained the
spotlight on the need for an early border settlement. Government sources say
Modi twice raised this requirement with Xi.

Addressing
the media with Xi standing by his side, Modi expressed his unhappiness with
Chinese transgressions; said peace on the border is “an essential foundation”
for the relationship; urged a resumption of the process to clarify the LAC
(i.e. exchange maps); and “seek an early settlement of the boundary question”.

In his
speech to a New Delhi audience later that day, Xi declared his willingness to
“settle the boundary question at an early date”.

New Delhi has
still to announce a successor to Shivshankar Menon as the PM’s special
representative on the border dialogue, which began in 2003. So far, 17 rounds
of talks have been held.

12 comments:

Symbolism...Rile India for the visit of President Mukherjee to Vietnam immediately before Chinese visit.

Adversarial positioning.....Remind Indians that the belly is targeted by string of pearls.... The neck is vulnerable due to India's poor border mgmt....

Corporate positioning.....lure with soft loans Indian corporates to divert attention to above two points! India's telecom & power sectors are already in their vice like grip. Alibaba, the online giant, will enter Indian markets soon.

PLA has sabotaged the visit of xi jinping by conducting these intrusions. This has been the pattern of all high profile visits of Chinese leaders to India. It's surprising that president Xi not aware. Modiji has done the right thing to elevate the strategic partnership with Japan. Both China and porkistan cannot be taken at face value. India doesn't require Chinese investments. Ask them to get lost.

All these years china consolidated interior Tibet by suppressing the agitating Tibeten monks and the Tibet movement. remember the immolations etc etc...Now having firm grip on the political front in Tibet, China is focusing on rapid development and consolidation in the border areas with Ladakh. It may like to settle the border issue soon.. and hence these new areas of dispute and aggressive stance on otherwise dormant sectors. Example. in DBO the chinese and indians who had working understanding of the boundaries were disputed by the chinese and now the same in chumar.This would effectively give them an edge in the talks and finally would settle as a trade off for major gains in other sectors from indians.

Please have a look at the following blogpost of mine and then you may feel the options of Chinese leadership in which PLA can act without orders from Central military commission is just not possible. https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=13926536#editor/target=post;postID=6023786069056622517;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=18;src=postname

Can we change the gear?....What will happen if the we Indians cross the LAC at places of our choice and timing?

1> This will erode the Chinese advantage of taking the initiative...Instead of we reacting to their intrusions all the time, they will have to react to our intrusions as well.2> This will spread their forces and focus all along the LAC and that is good for us.3> when we intrude, if they respond to us beyond shouting and pushing by firing etc, it should be taken as a precedent for our response when they intrude..their response to our intrusion should decide our response to their intrusion going onwards... 4> Considering all of the above, this will either make Chinese accept our intrusions as well ( up to pushing and shouting) or they will set a new precedent for us to respond to them...